Lone Survivor (2013)

Mark Wahlberg stars as a heroic Navy SEAL in this dramatisation of 2005’s disastrous Operation Red Wings.

When Taliban leader Ahmad Shah kills 20 US Marines in Afghanistan, there’s no question America will retaliate. As part of an operation to capture Shah, Marcus Luttrell, Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz and Matt ‘Axe’ Axelson are the four Navy SEALS tasked with tracking his whereabouts. The team are deployed to the Hindu Kusch mountain range in an attempt to stake him out, but when their decision to let three goat herders go free alerts the Taliban to their presence, the men come to realise they might face an impossible task.

Based on the real 2005 military operation detailed in Marcus Luttrell’s own book, this intense war actioner from the director of Friday Night Lights is a treat for fans of the genre.

Against a handsomely photographed landscape, the film delivers taut, exciting combat set-pieces alongside engaging scenes of soldier camaraderie which combine to make the ordeal our protagonists go through feel all the more brutal.